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One unique detail that was revealed by the study was that it appears that financial educators believe that “talking about money with family” is critical while those who didn’t teach financial education didn’t find it that important. The teaching group had a 63.6 percent selection percentage compared to 37.0 percent for the non-teaching group.

Assistance needs to be provided to do-it-yourself’ers: The study revealed that about three-fourths of respondents selected “self-studied” (76.7 percent), “newspapers/magazines” (75.7 percent) and “Internet sources” (74.1 percent) as their primary sources of personal finance information, teaching methods should include online resources and use social media to market these resources. Educators should incorporate “do-it-yourself” resources, such as free online courses, worksheets, calculators, resource guides and financial planning activities into their programs.

Educators will be more effective if they focus on audience needs: In designing personal finance educational programs, educators need to keep the target audience in mind for both preferred topics of interest and information delivery preferences (NEFE 2006; O’Neill et al. 2000; Lyons and Hunt 2003). Specifically, programs and materials need to be “personalized, engaging, attainable, reinforcing, and relevant” (Gurney 2006). People may also need to be shown that they overrate themselves in personal finance because they don’t know what they don’t know.

Consumers may want to consider if they have false confidence: Almost three-quarters (73.4 percent) of non-educators considered themselves highly financially knowledgeable. This could mean they are financially capable or simply overconfident. Their most frequently reported “Always” information source was family members, who may not be knowledgeable in personal finance. Stratified results showed that Cooperative Extension resources were not popular among consumers, an indication of a need to improve Extension marketing and outreach efforts.

The bottom line: This study supports the importance of financial educators listening to learners and addressing their content interests and learning method preferences.

Michigan State University Extension assists individuals, households, organizations and communities to become sustainable through money management workshops and other education related to financial capability, home pre-purchase education and foreclosure intervention.

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